End the "War on Terror" and Talk to the Taliban |
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| Authors: | OLIVIER ROY |
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| Institution: | Research director at the French National Center for Scientific Research and a lecturer for the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences. Roy is author of Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah;and The Failure of Political Islam, a standard text for students of political Islam. His most recent work is Secularism Confronts Islam. |
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| Abstract: | President Barack Obama pledged in his first TV interview—with the Arab satellite channel Al Arabiya—that America under his watch would "listen with respect and not dictate" to the world. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has further announced that this country will no longer just throw around its military might but will pursue a "smart power" approach by tempering the use of hard weaponry with the "soft power" of persuasion and cultural attraction. Or, as Madame Secretary's husband Bill has put it, America will now lead through the power of example instead of the example of power.
The first exceedingly complex test of Obama's smart power strategy will be how to end George W. Bush's misguided "war on terror" in Afghanistan and Pakistan, keeping al-Qaida at bay without being swallowed by the quagmire of tribal politics. An array of experts from New Delhi to Paris offers their views in this section. |
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